Improvements suggested after similar midair disaster never made their way into this Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777.

The clock is ticking on the search for clues to what caused a Beijing-bound Malaysia Airlines 777-200 to vanish suddenly from radar screens last weekend, forty minutes after leaving Kuala Lumpur. As leads and potential evidence surfaced and just as quickly fizzled, a flotilla of 40 ships from nine countries as well as two dozen aircraft scoured an area within a 50 nautical mile radius of Flight 370's last known position.

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The mystery has seemed to deepen days after the event, and the possibility that the answers lay at the bottom of the sea in the plane's black boxes is ratcheting up the pressure. As anyone who has followed the course of similar mid-air catastrophes knows, these recorders emit a ping to guide rescuers that lasts about one month. Failure to find them before the battery dies means a lengthy and frustrating probe for the causes of the disaster.

The question on many minds is, how is it possible that with seemingly total coverage of the globe by satellite, a commercial jetliner could simply go missing?" While Malaysian aviation authorities at a news conference professed to be "puzzled" over what happened to the plane and the 239 people aboard, many experts were dismayed that long-awaited improvements to the industry's antiquated tracking system hadn't happened in time.

A system that would use satellites to beam an airliner's position and other vital information is not only possible—it's already being used on some planes. In fact, on long-haul routes that fly over the North Pole or the Pacific Ocean, where radar coverage can be iffy, the latest models from Boeing and Airbus are using data link communications to transmit GPS coordinates and status updates. Even if the bandwidth wouldn't allow large amounts of information, such as those contained in the black boxes, it could be vital to tracking down the aircraft itself.

This case has close parallels to the crash of Air France flight 447 into the middle of the Atlantic in July 2009. Back then, it took three separate tries and nearly two years to retrieve the A330's recorders from a depth of 13,000 feet. That spurred aviation safety regulators to push for more redundancies in the recorder system, with the goal of ultimately moving to a continuous satellite link that would transmit data in real time, to be captured instantly in the event of a crash.

But that didn't happen. And even in the crash of Air France 447, investigators had something to go on: The aircraft had transmitted automated messages before it plunged into the ocean that gave strong evidence of a cascading failure in the plane's avionics. The cause of the accident ultimately was pinned on a series of glitches, starting with the pitot tubes that measure speed, and ultimately the pilots' failure to respond appropriately to repeated stall warnings was also blamed. But all that would have been much clearer if the boxes had been found soon after the crash.

In the absence of any evidence, the possible explanations for what happened to the missing Malaysia plane range all over the map: an explosion, a catastrophic engine failure, extreme turbulence, or pilot error, or even pilot suicide. Although no terrorist groups had come forward to claim credit, sabotage had not been ruled out, especially after it emerged that several passengers were traveling on stolen passports and that five passengers who had checked baggage had failed to board the plane (their luggage was removed from the flight, the airline said.)

"All we know for sure is that a plane went down with no warning or communication from the crew," says Patrick Smith, a pilot for a major airline and the author of Cockpit Confidential. While that would suggest a sudden and dramatic event such as a bomb, Smith cautioned that pilots in an emergency are trained to focus on flying first, with communicating to the ground a lower priority.

John Goglia, a former member of the National Transportation Safety Board, says that all this speculation could be avoided if the industry would take even some simple steps, such as prolonging the battery life of the recorders beyond a mere few weeks. Other improvements under consideration include installing a set of duplicate recorders that would automatically eject in the event of a crash, and could float on water. "This was on our wish list after AF447," he says, "but it went nowhere."

The fact that airliners are already being equipped with systems to offer Wi-Fi access and cell phone connectivity suggests that it shouldn't be difficult to enhance the systems to replicate the recorders' functions. Goglia points out that modern airliners are equipped with complex avionics systems that monitor the plane's performance, the so-called 'health monitoring' systems that are designed to spot problems even before they become apparent to the crew or maintenance workers. In fact, these systems can beam ahead data to the plane's next destination, where a replacement part or other fix is waiting.

The technology is there; and now, with the ill-fated Malaysia flight as a cautionary tale, the urgency should be as well. In the meantime, the date to watch is the second week in April, by which time the recorders will either be found or not.